


Ah-CHOO!

by blue_ringed_octopus



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Journalism, Newspaper Article, POV Outsider, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-06-29 06:18:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19824277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_ringed_octopus/pseuds/blue_ringed_octopus
Summary: Piney, OR (AP) — “We thought it was just people with seasonal allergies at first,” said Clara Woodward of Piney, Oregon. “You know. Everything’s too clean, so everybody’s immune systems went into overdrive? Or global warming and rising CO2 levels were causing the plants to produce more pollen? That’s what they said at first.”





	Ah-CHOO!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



June 9, 20XX

**IN-DEPTH: Ten months into the Sex Pollen Outbreak, no cure but plenty of questions**

by CALI SCOOP

Piney, OR (AP) — “We thought it was just people with seasonal allergies at first,” said Clara Woodward of Piney, Oregon. “You know. Everything’s too clean, so everybody’s immune systems went into overdrive? Or global warming and rising CO2 levels were causing the plants to produce more pollen? That’s what they said at first.”

Ms. Woodward, 46, homemaker and mother of two children, has the dubious distinction of living at what has been popularly identified as Ground Zero of the Sex Pollen Outbreak. Her neighbors, Doug and Mary Savage, were the first to make national news, unable to stop pursuing sexual relations even after nearly dying of dehydration. Ten months later, the outbreak has gone global, reaching epidemic proportions, and Ms. Woodward is the only person she knows from her town who has not been affected by it.

“The doctors have been studying me in the hopes that I’ll be key to a cure,” confides Ms. Woodward. “I swear to God I’ve been poked and prodded more than, um, uh…” Ms. Woodward laughs, and there is an edge of hysteria to the sound. “Well, let’s just say I’ve been poked and prodded more than the average victim of this tragic disease.”

An estimated 1 in 100,000 people are immune. For the rest of the vulnerable population, it seems, the choice is between laughter or tears as the epidemic continues to rage unchecked, tearing lives, families, communities, and entire nations apart.

“When I woke up, I’d been with an excess of fifty partners over the course of three days,” says a typical victim of the Sex Pollen Outbreak who has asked to remain anonymous. I met him at one of the few free STI testing clinics still in operation. “The worst part is that you remember _everything_. I wasn’t in control of myself, but I still feel like it was my own fault.”

Unfortunately, nobody has come up with something specific they can point to to blame for the epidemic. Expert analysis of weather patterns, while suggestive, have yet to reliably predict the sites of future localized outbreaks. Worse still, scientists have not yet successfully identified the source of the pollen which causes the symptoms in the first place.

“Air samples taken at every known localized outbreak demonstrate there is no one plant species whose pollen is detectable in every active hot zone,” explains Dr. Liza Smart, Oxbridge University epidemiologist and research lead of an interdisciplinary team tasked by the U.N. to study the Sex Pollen Outbreak. “At this point, we can only surmise that a variable mixture of pollen from multiple plant species is the culprit. Or perhaps it’s all just a state of mind. Collective madness in response to environmental stresses, if you will.”

Certainly, there are some who have taken the epidemic’s lemons and striven to make lemonade. Sex Pollen Orgy Events have been staged in New York, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Paris, New Delhi, Shanghai, and Cape Town during ongoing outbreaks. Free food and drink and safe intimate spaces to meet up are provided. Organizers estimate attendance at each event to have been in excess of 300,000, though local law enforcement numbers are between 15-20% lower.

“People can be so somber,” says John Hai, founder of the Sex Pollen Club of San Francisco. “So why not make the most of it? Say, you’re pretty good looking. Wanna join?”

I decline Mr. Hai’s offer politely and remind him that his critics have accused him and his organization of making light of the genuine suffering of others and that, moreover, deliberately infecting oneself has not been proven to work. Mr. Hai rolls his eyes. “Wanna bet?” he asks.


End file.
